Ask Joe: Do members of Congress get paid during the government shutdown?

by Joel Hart

Friday, January 25th 2019

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From the Ask Joe file: several viewers including Ron from Sparks have written in to ask if members of Congress are getting paid during the government shutdown?

Here's what I found out:

This is an interesting question and there are clearly some different opinions on whether lawmakers should get paid during the shutdown. The answer is yes they do get paid.

What I found is that members of Congress and others who work for the legislative branch as well as the Department of Defense, Department of Energy and the Department of Labor do get paid because the President signed an appropriations package that funds those departments and the legislative branch. That legislation was approved in October and funds those departments through the the fiscal year ending September 30th.

Its important to point out Nevada's two Senators, Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez-Masto have pledged that they will donate their salaries to charity during the shutdown. I also checked with Congressman Mark Amodei's staff and his spokesperson, Logan Ramsey told me the Congressman has filed paperwork to have his pay withheld during the shutdown.

Also, there was a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last week called the "No Budget, No Pay Act."

Senator Jacky Rosen released this statement saying "It's simple. Congress should not receive a paycheck during a government shutdown while thousands of hardworking Nevada families are left without pay."

So clearly there are some who feel Congress should not get paid when part of the government is shut down. But members of Congress will continue to collect their paychecks even though many federal workers are forced to go without pay until the government opens up again.